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On February 05 2013 16:29 figq wrote:
By the way, I'm always surprised when people argue that LoL is easy to get into. To me, games like Dota 2 and LoL are incredibly difficult to get into, because they have heroes+spells+items in the hundreds, and combined with possible builds and hero matchups, the game elements that you need to study and memorize goes in the thousands. Like, if you get all spells and stats from Starcraft, you can fit them all in probably 10% of the heroes of one of these monster-clusterfuck of information games that are Dota 2 and LoL.
Im going to assume this is your impression and that you haven't extensively played LoL and Dota2. What your saying would be true, if anyone had to account for every single possible variable within the game at once. However, this is far from the case. Memorizing all those variables might be required to master the game (it isn't) but you are discussing it being "easy to get into". There is tons of overlap in the abilities across the 100+ champions in the game, and you dont even need to know what your opponents abilities do to have fun in casual matches when you are just "getting into the game".
In LoL, during the first 10+ minutes its just you in your lane. If you are at top lane or middle lane, its just you and one other person, with some creeps, and the threat of a jungler. So a rough list of the variables you are accounting for is :
Where is the enemy jungler?
Where is my enemy lane opponent?
Where is my creepwave, where is his?
What items and abilities do both of us have?
The amount of variables is much fewer then you are making it sound, and the impact that they have as well as their variety is also much lower then you seem to realize (people always pick not only the same type of characters and send them top lane, they also actually just pick the same ones from a pool of 15ish for example, as well as them always buying the same starting items and item builds with them. Even in a 5v5 fight, all you actually have to account for is the the position of enemy champions and what their potential is to effect you, this usually involves only their abilities because the majority of items in LoL only give passive bonuses, so they don't even need to be considered.
Finally, let me mention that having thousands game elements does not make your game deep. It makes it broad. And actually prevents it from ever getting too deep, because the development in breadth will just overcome the development in depth. Browder talked about that in an interview - that Starcraft from the beginning is intended to not have too many game elements, in order to allow for more depth.
This is again true, however both LoL and sc2 technically have more then thousands of variable elements, its just about their variety and how much importance they individually have. If you study LoL at a competitive level it is NOT suffering from being too complex, i promise. (Although it is suffering, as my post before this one outlines).
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On February 05 2013 16:40 kylols wrote:
There is tons of overlap in the abilities across the 100+ champions in the game, and you dont even need to know what your opponents abilities do to have fun in casual matches when you are just "getting into the game". Yeah, I don't really get this principle, perhaps I'm old, from another gaming generation etc. In Starcraft (the classic one), first you get a campaign, divided by 3 - one for each race. Each racial story introduces the units of that race one by one, in separate missions that emphasize that unit's strengths and abilities. This approach is older than Starcraft - you can find it in Dune 2, for example.
In games like LoL, you don't have a campaign. Instead, you have only limited pool of heroes at first. Which I think is great for newcomers - having 100+ heroes to choose from at once from the beginning would be overwhelming and confusing. You'd rather start with a few heroes, study them well, and only then expand to more heroes. But the difference is - in Starcraft, you will not be met from the start with all the advanced units of all races. You'd have some marines vs some lings. Then also some vultures vs also some hydras etc. In LoL or Dota 2, you'll immediately face all kinds of heroes as enemies, and you won't know jack shit about what they do. That's not something I consider an easy learning curve.
For example, you mention thinking about getting ganked ("the threat of a jungler") - but you won't even know what heroes are gankers, what type of move they have to be careful about. In fact you won't know which enemy hero is a jungler too.
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On February 05 2013 17:06 figq wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2013 16:40 kylols wrote:
There is tons of overlap in the abilities across the 100+ champions in the game, and you dont even need to know what your opponents abilities do to have fun in casual matches when you are just "getting into the game". Yeah, I don't really get this principle, perhaps I'm old, from another gaming generation etc. In Starcraft (the classic one), first you get a campaign, divided by 3 - one for each race. Each racial story introduces the units of that race one by one, in separate missions that emphasize that unit's strengths and abilities. This approach is older than Starcraft - you can find it in Dune 2, for example. In games like LoL, you don't have a campaign. Instead, you have only limited pool of heroes at first. Which I think is great for newcomers - having 100+ heroes to choose from at once from the beginning would be overwhelming and confusing. You'd rather start with a few heroes, study them well, and only then expand to more heroes. But the difference is - in Starcraft, you will not be met from the start with all the advanced units of all races. You'd have some marines vs some lings. Then also some vultures vs also some hydras etc. In LoL or Dota 2, you'll immediately face all kinds of heroes as enemies, and you won't know jack shit about what they do. That's not something I consider an easy learning curve. For example, you mention thinking about getting ganked ("the threat of a jungler") - but you won't even know what heroes are gankers, what type of move they have to be careful about.
Starcraft is better.  .
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When you first start the game, there is no jungler. I'd say that the game is harder to watch from a beginner's perspective simply because you'll have no idea what any of the heroes do and team fights just look like a bunch of random stuff all over the place, but as far as playing goes, it's very easy to get into.
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On February 05 2013 17:18 GolemMadness wrote:
When you first start the game, there is no jungler. I'd say that the game is harder to watch from a beginner's perspective simply because you'll have no idea what any of the heroes do and team fights just look like a bunch of random stuff all over the place, but as far as playing goes, it's very easy to get into.
Which is why DotA-likes wont ever be as good spectator sports as Starcraft. If you have never played starcraft, but the toss player gets out his colossus, you can tell that its more powerful and important then the stalker-sentry-zealots that he has had so far. It's huge. When it starts shooting sweeping lazers at the bio composition of the terran player, you can start to get the idea that its good against bio. When Doublelift buys an infinity edge, uhh.. what the fuck is an infinity edge? Did the caster just say "Doubelift picks up his IE, that will help alot" You have no idea whats happened, that doesn't excite you. Totalbiscuit talked about this recently. A good esport shouldnt require you to have played it enough to be familiar with everything for you to enjoy watching it.
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On February 05 2013 17:32 kylols wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2013 17:18 GolemMadness wrote:
When you first start the game, there is no jungler. I'd say that the game is harder to watch from a beginner's perspective simply because you'll have no idea what any of the heroes do and team fights just look like a bunch of random stuff all over the place, but as far as playing goes, it's very easy to get into. Which is why DotA-likes wont ever be as good spectator sports as Starcraft. If you have never played starcraft, but the toss player gets out his colossus, you can tell that its more powerful and important then the stalker-sentry-zealots that he has had so far. It's huge. When it starts shooting sweeping lazers at the bio composition of the terran player, you can start to get the idea that its good against bio. When Doublelift buys an infinity edge, uhh.. what the fuck is an infinity edge? Did the caster just say "Doubelift picks up his IE, that will help alot" You have no idea whats happened, that doesn't excite you. Totalbiscuit talked about this recently. A good esport shouldnt require you to have played it enough to be familiar with everything for you to enjoy watching it.
You way oversimplify watching SC2 to a newcomer.
In your example, why arent the sweeping lazers shooting up and hitting the vikings? Why can the vikings hit the Colossus - i thought vikings could only hit air? What the hell is thermal lance? What exactly does +1 do?
Every spectator sport (yes that includes starcraft) requires you to be familiar with the mechanics. Like what is the difference between a fumble and an incomplete pass in American Football? Knowing why getting an IE, thermal lance, and a fumble recovery is good is critical to most people's enjoyment of a game.
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On February 05 2013 17:32 kylols wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2013 17:18 GolemMadness wrote:
When you first start the game, there is no jungler. I'd say that the game is harder to watch from a beginner's perspective simply because you'll have no idea what any of the heroes do and team fights just look like a bunch of random stuff all over the place, but as far as playing goes, it's very easy to get into. Which is why DotA-likes wont ever be as good spectator sports as Starcraft. If you have never played starcraft, but the toss player gets out his colossus, you can tell that its more powerful and important then the stalker-sentry-zealots that he has had so far. It's huge. When it starts shooting sweeping lazers at the bio composition of the terran player, you can start to get the idea that its good against bio. When Doublelift buys an infinity edge, uhh.. what the fuck is an infinity edge? Did the caster just say "Doubelift picks up his IE, that will help alot" You have no idea whats happened, that doesn't excite you. Totalbiscuit talked about this recently. A good esport shouldnt require you to have played it enough to be familiar with everything for you to enjoy watching it.
Ok, but that doesn't make it a BETTER spectator sport. You could argue that it makes it harder to get into, but given that it's already far more popular, that isn't really an issue. Also, as for your example: it's a sword, so you assume it makes you do more damage. Which it does.
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On February 05 2013 17:48 MinistryofPain wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On February 05 2013 17:32 kylols wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2013 17:18 GolemMadness wrote:
When you first start the game, there is no jungler. I'd say that the game is harder to watch from a beginner's perspective simply because you'll have no idea what any of the heroes do and team fights just look like a bunch of random stuff all over the place, but as far as playing goes, it's very easy to get into. Which is why DotA-likes wont ever be as good spectator sports as Starcraft. If you have never played starcraft, but the toss player gets out his colossus, you can tell that its more powerful and important then the stalker-sentry-zealots that he has had so far. It's huge. When it starts shooting sweeping lazers at the bio composition of the terran player, you can start to get the idea that its good against bio. When Doublelift buys an infinity edge, uhh.. what the fuck is an infinity edge? Did the caster just say "Doubelift picks up his IE, that will help alot" You have no idea whats happened, that doesn't excite you. Totalbiscuit talked about this recently. A good esport shouldnt require you to have played it enough to be familiar with everything for you to enjoy watching it. You way oversimplify watching SC2 to a newcomer. In your example, why aren't the sweeping lazers shooting up and hitting the vikings? Why can the vikings hit the Colossus - i thought vikings could only hit air? What the hell is thermal lance? What exactly does +1 do? Every spectator sport (yes that includes starcraft) requires you to be familiar with the mechanics. Like what is the difference between a fumble and an incomplete pass in American Football? Knowing why getting an IE, thermal lance, and a fumble recovery is good is critical to most people's enjoyment of a game.
You oversimplify what i said. In every spectator sport, yes that includes Starcraft, the viewers enjoyment will increase proportionately to the amount of details they understand. However, the minimum for LoL (and dota-likes, as much as i like dota2) is too high. You can explain the very minimum to someone who's never played a pc game and they have a good chance of being interested in a professional sc2 match (similar to the hypothetical scenario i gave). You cant explain the minimum of LoL to someone and expect them to understand ANYTHING they are watching. Colossus coming out is exciting, someone getting their IE before the enemy adc doesn't mean anything to someone who doesn't PLAY the game. LoL is desgined to be played, and competitions were tacked on as something for the playerbase to watch. SC is viewed exclusively by a massively larger percentage of its audience. They don't play, they just watch. This is not a coincidence, the games were deliberately designed like this.
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On February 05 2013 18:09 GolemMadness wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2013 17:32 kylols wrote:On February 05 2013 17:18 GolemMadness wrote:
When you first start the game, there is no jungler. I'd say that the game is harder to watch from a beginner's perspective simply because you'll have no idea what any of the heroes do and team fights just look like a bunch of random stuff all over the place, but as far as playing goes, it's very easy to get into. Which is why DotA-likes wont ever be as good spectator sports as Starcraft. If you have never played starcraft, but the toss player gets out his colossus, you can tell that its more powerful and important then the stalker-sentry-zealots that he has had so far. It's huge. When it starts shooting sweeping lazers at the bio composition of the terran player, you can start to get the idea that its good against bio. When Doublelift buys an infinity edge, uhh.. what the fuck is an infinity edge? Did the caster just say "Doubelift picks up his IE, that will help alot" You have no idea whats happened, that doesn't excite you. Totalbiscuit talked about this recently. A good esport shouldnt require you to have played it enough to be familiar with everything for you to enjoy watching it. Ok, but that doesn't make it a BETTER spectator sport. You could argue that it makes it harder to get into, but given that it's already far more popular, that isn't really an issue. Also, as for your example: it's a sword, so you assume it makes you do more damage. Which it does.
It makes it a better spectator sport and arguably worse game. They are different things. I think its a better spectator sport and a better game, but that part is opinion. LoL is designed + Show Spoiler +(from the beginning, if you have followed LoL they never planned to have competitions and they didn't have replays for the longest time)
edit : also just to carry out the argument, infinity edge doesn't have the clarity for the spectator that the collosus has. Its only visually represented in the players item slot. The spectator (as opposed to the player) probably wont see that, and if he does see the little icon and does make out that its the sword, its still incomparable to the visual clarity (for the spectator) of the colossus. Its huge.
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What most people's grief with LoL is that its predacessor is/was Dota. Dota as an eSport offers more in the way of skill than LoL ever has and isn't much harder to pickup. Gaming traditionalists are aggrieved that a game with a lower skill ceiling is simply accepted as the most popular eSport because its free.
Don't get me wrong, LoL is a fun game to bash around with - constant team fights and no denying - but if you really want to watch and admire the very best in the A-RTS business, it's definitely dota.
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On February 05 2013 18:35 cozzE wrote:
What most people's grief with LoL is that its predacessor is/was Dota. Dota as an eSport offers more in the way of skill than LoL ever has and isn't much harder to pickup. Gaming traditionalists are aggrieved that a game with a lower skill ceiling is simply accepted as the most popular eSport because its free.
Don't get me wrong, LoL is a fun game to bash around with - constant team fights and no denying - but if you really want to watch and admire the very best in the A-RTS business, it's definitely dota.
LoL is far less free than DotA or Dota2 (either you spend a lot of time farming IP for champions or spend real money to buy them vs... you know, dota). It's also not "accepted as the most popular esport," it IS the most popular esport at the moment due to a combination of marketing, invite bonuses, easier gameplay, etc.
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LoL is SC2 without the mechanics that are required to play the game well. The game knowledge is just as important.
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sc2 is harder by a mile but LoL is more popular. sc2 is also a pretty bad game guys. LoL wins out much to the chagrin of the TL goers and tbh LoL is a lot more casually fun where as in a sc2 game nothing but your BEST play will do. i can chill and mess around and dominate on league
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On February 05 2013 19:18 thezanursic wrote:
LoL is SC2 without the mechanics that are required to play the game well.
but the games aren't even the same genre.. what are you saying....
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On February 05 2013 11:15 jpak wrote:Takes a (former) elitist to know an elitist, and current SC2 community makes the BW elitists look rather tame.
No.
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Mechanics do matter, so does decision making and planning. To say that they don't is ridiculous and this thread is just what it sounds like, self-serving apologetics
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It's interesting that about 3-6 months ago well established SC2 casters/personalities started tweeting and blogging about how they are casually playing/learning LOL.
DJ Wheat, Doa, Catspajamas, ItmeJP and Mr.Bitter to name a few. They tried to ease people into it, like parents trying to slowly break it to their kids that they are getting a divorce. They do it with care and sensitivity, trying not to leave us betrayed. "It's not your fault!"
And like in DoA's blog here, they always fall back on similar statements:"It's good for Esports!" "SC2 and LOL don't compete against each other" "SC2 and LOL can co-exist". But, I find that argument so disingenuous. The mutual success of both games is good for the Esport broadcasting companies, not necessarily for the fans of a particular Esport game.
These casters are making a career move, they are hedging their bets. They and the companies employing them recognize the profitability and growth of LOL. Business is business. You don't see any LOL casters picking up SC2 gigs do you?
I'd rather have people like DoA simply state "I've also begun casting LOL because my superiors want cross-game appeal and I will make more money." At least then he's being direct and honest.
Stop with the Kumbaya stuff. LoL and SC2 compete for player's time, viewership, and money. That is a fact. The genre stuff you talk about is inconsequential.
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Doa we want you to come back to Sc2 >.<!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I don't know if this discussion is still going on, but maybe a perspective from player who played dota for 3 years, then starcraft 2 for 2 years and now League for a year and a half can add something.
League definitely takes less skill to play than Dota and Starcraft, anyone who says otherwise is being delusional.
But that doesn't make League a worse game. It just means what it means. I have much more respect for Sc2 pros and Dota pros than I do for League pros, but that doesn't mean that League pros are inferior players or something - they're doing their best to play their game and that's worthy of respect, too.
We live in a world that's based around profits, so, (un)fortunately, the most popular game is the one that gets the most money and that has the most promising future. This is League of legends. I can understand why it makes people like you (dota and starcraft players) angry, because you feel (and rightly so, it's your opinion after all) that your game is superior. That's why when you see players playing this "inferior" game and get more money and more fame and a more promising future than you, you get angry. This is understandable. But there really is no need to start hating on it publicly. All that shows is a certain immaturity of not being able to overcome the shortcomings of your game (popularity is a valid attribute).
Another thing you could be blaming is the viewers. But it's not really their fault for liking something else than you, is it?
This is why I think there is no need to wage wars between the communities. The games are different and cater to to different people. Maybe Blizzard/Valve should have made different decisions to seize the popularity that Riot has. I don't see how this is the fault of the players who play and enjoy the game, nor the viewers who watch it. "People should like the game that I do and everyone who doesn't is an idiot" is incredibly immature and is the basis of most bashing towards League. The fact that League takes less mechanical skill than the other games is completely and utterly irrelevant - you're just using that argument because it's true and because you feel like it's important, but in the end, it's just something you tell yourself to feel better about the less popular game you're playing. There is no need to talk about it.
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Being one of two people who plays SC out of group of friends who only play LoL the only thing that I don't really like about the LoL community is, personally they don't seem to care for esports, only the LoL scene.
Me and my buddy who plays SC with me try to watch others games too, We are both big fans of CS, i've starting watching DOTA2 recently and he's getting into fighting games (mainly street fighter) and during IEM we were both wathcing world of tanks just to see what it was like.
We try to get them watching over stuff but their not interested and the common response we got for them is either 'Why would I watch that when I could be watching LoL' or 'That community just hates Lol so I don't want to watch that rubbish game'
I'm pretty sure that this isn't the case generally and Its a pretty unique situation but Its all I have to go off.
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EPT
